Is Louisville football poised for bigger leap in 2020 under Scott Satterfield?

After a successful debut season, can Scott Satterfield take the next step and have Louisville football play for a spot in the ACC championship game?

Most in college football had a huge respect for Scott Satterfield as a football coach for what he had built during his time at Appalachian State, but nobody expected him to do much in his first season at Louisville.

The Cardinals had fallen on harden times with the departure of NFL MVP Lamar Jackson and head coach Bobby Petrino was falling out of favor with just about everyone. Louisville fired Petrino during the 2018 season after a 2-8 start to the year and hired Satterfield to take the program in a new direction.

Louisville went from 2-10 to 8-5 and the Cardinals come into 2020 with a lot of momentum and heightened expectations and many, including myself, think they can challenge for a spot in this year’s ACC title game.

Year two of a coach’s tenure is when you can generally see where a program has the capability of going. Nick Saban had Alabama at 12-2, Kirby Smart had Georgia in the championship game, and Pete Carroll had USC in the Orange Bowl.

Now I’m not saying that Satterfield could have have Louisville playing at that kind of level because I don’t think they have that kind of talent that those programs had. I’m just saying that another reason to watch Louisville is that a coach’s second year is when you can sometimes see what kid of program that they are about to become and with so many returning starters, it is easy to see why people are buying stock into Louisville football this season.

You can also consider the Cardinals big winners of the new ACC schedule and how the conference is doing away with divisions, because Louisville avoids Clemson.

Expectations have been raised and it will be interesting to see if the Cardinals can meet the challenge and vie for a spot in this years ACC championship.